Interesting. Pali is going to be hit hard from what I heard Naimo talking about. We'll see. Just got word about hosting - congrats. Hopefully there will be a nice crowd...
I am pretty sure all FSU players are currently in Tallahassee, camp starts today/tomorrow. McNulty and DaCosta, I think, were some of the players Hudson was without. As for Washington, besides McCarty, there is also Becky Edwards and Toni Pressley.
Yea, McNulty and DaCosta were gone. Oklahoma wouldn't release Whitney Palmer, which was arguably the biggest loss. Mercede Koning at BYU and Erica Campanelli (Captain) at Texas were the others.
We had an okay crowd tonight by our 2009 W-League standards - west side bleachers were populated if not packed. Friday might be a little tougher because it's a weeknight, but one would hope that the championship would garner some attention. Not sure what the WPS Freedom are going to do about it because that's supposedly the "Meet-the-Team" night for the season ticket holders. Maybe they'll combine the two events!
I know UNC starts their pre-season camp this week and that means Pali Blues could potentially (by that I mean most likely) be missing Whitney Engen, Ashlyn Harris (GK with the most starts), Nikki Washington and Tobin Heath. Those are some pretty big names to be missing. Should be interesting to see who both teams put on the field.
I emailed the coach about this, and he said the NCAA changed the rules about when to start training camp in May, a little late for USL to do anything about it.
Interesting. I know that there was a lot of talk about this problem at the league meetings back in November, though. They must have known at least something at that point.
Just got confirmation that Pali will be missing UCLA, UNC and Stanford players - meaning in addition to the ones in my last post they will be missing Kara Lang, Lauren Cheney and Kelly O'Hara. SFC - any news on which college players we will be missing - I know Christine Nairn, but wasn't sure about others. At least Jen Parsons will be there.
The main loss according to Win will be the Florida State players: Tiffany McCarty (actually already out due to an injury), Becky Edwards, Julie Lancos, and Toni Pressley. He was vague about anyone else but said he was in discussions with some coaches about the situation. Brittany Tegeler (our #2 scorer) left the last game early due to an injury, so I don't know about her status, either.
I don't understand why they got away from having the semifinals and final the same weekend - that would improve this situation and would have saved Pali from having to make two cross-country round-trips within a week. Not sure whom to blame about the overall situation. Seems to me that the NCAA should give the W-League has enough of a window to play 14 matches followed by two weeks for playoffs. Do they have that now?
The Pali Blues came back from a 0-1 deficit with a goal in the 86th minute to claim their second straight W-League title over the Washington Freedom. It was a hard-fought if not beautifully played game with both teams missing many of their key regulars.